I’m a conservative. I don’t mind the liberal stuff here. It’s good to learn the other side, but I don’t want a liberal echo chamber. I’d like to be more politically balanced in the fediverse. Is there any way I can do that?
Unfortunately most of the more “conservative” instances became highly toxic and so most other instances have defederated with them.
funny how every time conservatives group up, their communities become so toxic, full of hate and conspiracies, that people have no choice but to cut ties lol
Woah, woah, there… Telling all the trannies and colored folks to die is their protected free speech rights. How dare you cancel them.
they’d thrive on 4chan. i recommend OP go there. that’s a breeding ground for this ideology. they can enjoy all the loli, nazi, and “n***er” rekt gore threads they desire
I have to ask, what do lolis have to do with the rest? I can’t say I’m a fan but I feel like I’ve missed a memo.
4chan has a shiiiit ton of loli threads, sometimes containing real cp unfortunately, and some ai generated realistic cp. and, 4chan is a cesspool of alt right cunts. they are the ones proudly producing the threads
It’s because their political leader at the moment is a populist. They can’t help but be a bunch of cunts. Monkey see money do kind of thing.
Here’s an unpopular opinion. I saw a lot of the same elements in the Bernie crowd. Not for taking peoples rights or anything illegal like that mind you, but they were very quick to want to ignore the rules during the primary to throw out the choice of the Democratic majority in order to have Bernie win over Hillary. To this day I still hear conspiracy theory talking points about how Bernie really won, or how he was winning the real polls, etc. it’s the same populist rhetoric and it’s dangerous.
Yeah, but how often did Bernie himself repeat those conspiracy theories? Did he ever try to violently overturn the Democratic primary results? Every popular person has some shitty supporters, so you can’t just judge people based on their supporters.
Yeah, but how often did Bernie himself repeat those conspiracy theories? Did he ever try to violently overturn the Democratic primary results? Every popular person has some shitty supporters, so you can’t just judge people based on their supporters.
Have you seen all the comments on this thread?
Instead of answering the OPs question, 100+ people are just bashing him for thinking differently, saying stuff like “Well, why are you conservative in the first place? Conservatism is so stupid! People on the right are evil, monsters, etc.”
This left wing echo chamber is already very hateful and against any differing opinions.
I agree. The way I worded my comment was very intentional to not bash conservatism. I don’t consider myself one but I thought OP’s question was pretty respectful and I do find it unfortunate that he doesn’t have a community on here that isn’t extremely radicalized.
Yeah, it’s a shame that people can’t be more civil and respectful to each other. Some people here have to get off their high horse.
It’s not “thinking differently” it’s “the beliefs necessary to maintain that political stance are stupid and cruel”.
Instantly became toxic? I’m shocked, shocked I say!
I think they would be more moderate if more moderate people would have opportunity to participate. Right now all of the non left instances or communities get too quickly defederated and deleted, so moderate people who would normally participate dont want to create na account on a completely defederated instance. The only thing you are left of there are some crazies.
The only way I heard of conservative communities here is from a post that is asking for defederation or deletion
Well, the conservatives in those communities could try being less horrible pieces of shit and not bring hate to minority spaces, but that’s probably too much to ask
Remember when being conservative meant you wanted lower tax?
Now it’s a competition to see who’s going to say the most toxic stuff and who can become the biggest piece of trash a human being can be
“I LOVE RUSSIA TRUMP IS MY GOD FUCK LGBTS ALL TRANS ARE PEDOPHILE SOROS BILL GATES WOKE WOKE WOKE WOKE WOKE WOKE WOKE WOKE FAUCI OBAMA BUT HER EMAILS BUT HIS LAPTOPS BUD LITE WOKE WOKE”
like holy shit, calm down a bit…
That was like 15 years ago as I remember it. Being a conservative was about being a fiscal responsibility, and there was an expectation that we were all moving in the same direction socially. Now it’s all messed up.
It’s been the same since the Nixon era, they’re just more mask off about it now.
Conservatism has always been that
Give hate a chance!
conservative spaces shouldn’t need moderates to balance out their toxicity and crazy when left on their own, they simply shouldn’t be toxic and crazy. why do they need their hand held? it gets defederated quickly because THEY always quickly turn their spaces into pure hate, and they choose to spread that. that’s on them, not us.
The ideology is built in hate so it’s no surprise this happens to them
Community starts, insane conspiracy prevails, defederated/removed.
“moderate “ conservative is a myth
A person can share some values from both sides of political spectrum. Why is that concept so difficult for people to understand?
Its definetely not a myth
Provide an example of a moderate conservative view then.
Without dog whistles and nonsense like “small government” or whatever other labels conservatives like to pretend to have
I get what you’re saying. There’s a mindset in the fediverse that everyone on an instance is responsible for it. Even if the bad actors join later. The instance gets defederated but as a user it can be really hard to know if your instance is defederated.
It’s a deeply unpopular opinion and anyone who suggests that federation is simultaneously a huge advance and a big problem seems to get downvoted.
You’re right, ultimately instead of being exposed to a range of views some of which are challenging we’ll end up in little echo chambers.
We need more moderation and less defederation.
I’m fine being in an echo chamber that Trans people deserve human rights. That’s a hill I’m willing to die on. If you disagree, you can stay out of my bubble, I’m not negotiating this point.
I haven’t mentioned anything about Trans people at all ? There’s nothing to negotiate and I don’t disagree that trans people have a right to be treated with respect and have their rights respected.
There’s a difference between being exposed to a range of views and being exposed to hatred.
I’m socially pretty left but a voluntarist and it feels pretty hostile. Even socially moderate or liberal cons will feel pretty bad. I’m just used to chillin’ in left spaces so it’s whatever.
The challenge will be finding an actual traditional conservative instance that isn’t also a pro-Nazi fascist shithole.
I imagine traditional conservatives often get gate checked as leftist.
Been called a Nazi plenty of times on Reddit and now here. God forbid you believe capitalism with a touch of regulation when needed works 🤷♂️.
Not to get too sidetracked but part of what isn’t working about capitalism is what is coming down the pipe with climate change. Capitalism does work, but market socialism looks like an upgrade to me. People over profits.
That’s fine. I’m just saying it doesn’t make me racist Nazi to have a more right position.
Maybe not, but the consequences of your beliefs impact people negatively and you should accept the resulting disapproval.
No it doesn’t. You’d have to support nazi ideas to be a nazi, but how distant that connection can be applied I’m not sure. The left and right are calling each other nazis lately so I guess it can reach a long way.
No, but you are still voting to support all those other things when you vote republican
DOUBT
You’ve said other things to get people to call you that.
👌👍
Well if any left winger were to argue that merely believing capitalism with a touch of regulation works is all that makes you a Nazi, I’d be inclined to disagree with them even as a liberal progressive.
For me it’s believing that what you read, what you are taught, who you love/marry, how you practice art, what happens between you and a doctor, and where you were born that needs to be policed, controlled, and punished is what makes a Nazi. I honestly don’t think a genuine American conservative would care about any of that.
I think you are referring to democratic socialism.
deleted by creator
Yeah there’s only as much sane conservative content as there are sane conservatives.
/r/conservative used to be moderately sane back before 2015. It’s almost like the entire Republican lost their minds the year after that. I wonder why…
Face it, the Republican party has been hijacked ever since they opened the doors to the tea party folks and Sarah Palin. It’s time for conservatives to split off and make their own party away from the nuts.
Nope, it started much earlier. When they linked up with evangelical Christians.
deleted by creator
holy shit, the jokes write themselves. it really is like 3 losers posting weird ass shit
“If A Leftist Guy Was With His Girlfriend And Called You A Toxic Male, What Would You Do?”
“I downvote every post that says 'climate change”here is a nice post on !fatehate to emphasize their wonderful community of rational conservatives
“jabba the black”
Also a bunch of transphobic shit, because of course.
and another
aaaand another, i could go on
You’re already contributing to a balanced discussion. keep at it and be the change you want to see. I feel the whole “belonging to a camp” thing in terms of opinions and politics is too simplistic thinking. Some people like myself happen to have opinions that will range across the political spectrum. Let’s say a very political person starts a conversation, but is swapped out for someone else from their “camp”; Isn’t it boring to know all of their talking points and opinions before they even start talking? Imo that’s detrimental to free thinking and learning to accept other viewpoints. The thought in politics is that we must all agree on all of our camps points or be chastised for not complying, also we must make the other side see that our side was correct all along otherwise our side will loose. Nah fuck that, let’s just learn to have conversations with a variety of opinions first.
I find it very weird how certain specific issues are assigned to a certain political leaning or more correct correct, how you are expected to believe a certain way in all topics depending on your voting history.
A couple examples are religion and abortion. What do these have to do with any political leaning in the US or any country for that matter? Our maybe the better question to ask is why do people think there is some universal law that dictates what side of the political spectrum you lie on based on certain beliefs that have nothing to do with politics?
That’s the point. This liberal vs conservative isn’t even working for the US. In an international community like Lemmy it’s even worse, as what people from the US define as left and right does not work for western Europe for example. In Germany liberal in a modern sense is seen equal to neoliberal, what is democrats for US is right conservative for us, what is left in Europe is communism for the US and so on, you get it.
It may work for parties on a regional level, but for individuals, forget it.
The connection between conservatism and religion/abortion exists because of a well documented effort by Reagan era republicans to culturally connect them. Imo there is no underlying rationale besides “we will create and maintain moral wedge issues to keep religious voters on the hook”, while they work on their true goals- the consolidation of wealth and power further into the oligarchy.
This is so important. In essence, politics should be about our view, and critically searching for those who best represent it (or the most important part of it at the current moment), not about a ‘team we root for’ and get our views from. I think too many people forget that.
Reality has a well known liberal bias. Stop trying to hide from reality.
No, the Internet as a whole has more liberals than conservatives, due to a variety of reason. In real life you are much more likely to met someone that is neutral or only slightly to either side. What exists here is literal echo chambers of liberal policy to the point the policy becomes unpalatable for most, that doesn’t exist outside the internet.
the Internet as a whole has more liberals than conservatives
Because Conservatives don’t know how to use the internet or change the channel away from fox
that doesn’t exist outside the internet.
Never been to any type of city, I see.
As a rural person, I’ve come to realize that we usually have no real concept of just how overwhelmingly large the population is that lives in huge cities.
It’s easy to perceive New York as just “a lot bigger than any town I’ve lived in” rather than “large enough that my entire town could visit on the same day and literally no one would notice”.
Another one that helps me put it in perspective - “If every resident of New York took a day trip to casually slap one member of my town one time, everyone in my town would probably die of our injuries.” It helps me when meditating on “Why should they wield so much political power?” They already do. This shared voting system just let’s us argue in a much chiller way.
A lot of history makes more sense through the context of realizing both how different city and town life is, while also accepting that an almost inconceivable number of people live in cities.
No. The Internet just seems more liberally slanted because people are more liberally slanted overall. Conservatives rely on outdated voting principles to make it seem like they are more widely supported than they actually are. Things like first past the post, electoral college and gerrymandering. This is why you see republicans fighting to either keep the voting process the way it is, or to restrict voting in various ways.
Also, conservatives feel like the Internet is more slanted to the left because they are usually stuck in their little rural community echo chamber. Then come to the internet where they actually have to interact with people outside their local area, like cities and other countries.
that doesn’t exist outside the internet.
It sure exists in the podcasts I listen to (real people talking, even if it gets delivered via internet) and books that I read. It exists in the conversations that I have with my social group irl. It existed like crazy at the Bernie campaign speech that I attended in Feb 2020. If you think Leftist / Social Democrats don’t have real numbers, it’s because you don’t look for those groups to surround you.
I think it’ll be tough to find that corner of it… I think I saw a conservative community on lemmy.world but the platforms original purpose was to get away from the big, controlling, capitalist social media platforms the likes of Twitter, Instagram, reddit, etc. Like mastodon, the largest part of the fediverse (I’m pretty sure), grew alot when twitter was brought by Elon, and more moved after he messed up the platform enough, saying they’ll create their own platform where hate won’t be allowed. It’s kinda against it’s nature to have much conservative-ness.
Not trying to be rude as based on how this sounds, you seem nice enough and not crazy, but places like mastodon are basically the left’s version of “Truth social” where people are pretty ok with saying “I don’t want those thoughts spread here” those thoughts they don’t want are usually things like homophobia or transphobia, but those are fairly common on the right even if you don’t share them.
It’s an interesting thought and would probably be alittle healthier, but hey you’re still here being able to provide that counter point of view
Anyone who votes for a party that supports racism, banning books, and trying to make it harder for people to vote is not “nice enough”.
They are an evil piece of shit who is making the country a miserable place to live.
I agree with this but we aren’t talking about castings votes here and I’m assuming OP is voting as if he is a sane person, but what are they supposed to do with the values they hold that don’t align with liberalism?
If you have only two choices and both are bad, you have to choose the lesser evil. The OP probably doesn’t like the racism and stuff, but they dislike certain policies of the other party even more.
Also, “trying to make it harder for people to vote” is an interesting way to say “requiring people to bring their citizen ID when voting, like in any civilized country”.
I would say that the dismantling of human rights would be a greater evil than the things the democrats could cook up, but if you are not affected and have no empathy for others it could be better to vote for the republicans.
And werent the conditions to be able to vote pretty restrictive to a lot of people?
I live in a country where identification is required for voting and it doesn’t feel restrictive. On the contrary, I’m glad someone can’t just vote in my name.
In the US the largest group of people without id’s are Democrats and black.
It’s literally making the system more racist.
Every black person has an ID, you have to otherwise you can’t do anything anyways. I have never met anyone in my community who doesn’t have some form of ID that’s valid in elections.
So the question is, why doesn’t everyone have IDs? How does the country identify its citizens?
IDs cost money, require visits to DMVs (which conservatives work hard to shut down in poor areas, or other fuckery with their hours or such), and if you want the federal level one cost more and require more paperwork
We use the garbage and not-designed-for-this social security number for major IDing
In my country:
- We have a mandatory national ID
- Having it automatically registers you as a voter after 16 y.o.
- Voting is mandatory between 18 and 70.
- We vote on Sundays to ensure everyone can go.
- Voting in always in person. We usually use schools to that end, windows are obscured to ensure secrecy.
- We record who voted following the electoral registry. Only the last issued national ID is valid to vote.
Where is this Shangri-la?
I’m thinking specifically of gerrymandering but this article covers the many voter disenfranchisement methods used by Republicans in the US in the past decades:
There’s far more to making voting more difficult than just requiring an ID. For example, I believe it was Texas that relatively recently lowered its number of voting stations in left-leaning areas and made it illegal to give people water that were waiting in line to vote.
You can be someone that’s not inherently against capitalism and for free communications platforms. I think stuff like this is a good start for polycentric regulation, which I see as important for any type of a voluntary or anarchist future.
Make your own instance. like truth.social. lmfao
I’m sure prager would fund it if someone explained it to him
Honestly? And I promise I’m not being sarcastic: Reddit and Twitter are still your home. But the same goes for centre-left liberals. It’s not that you’re conservative, it’s that you’re moderate.
Many of the recent arrivals to the fediverse (myself included) are here because we’re fleeing the corporate internet. We feel strongly enough about it that we’ve thrown all our toys out of the pram, abandoning huge platforms to try build this new space. This kind of behaviour isn’t exactly “centrist”.
So this nascent lemmyverse has a wiiiiide breadth of political views but not as much in the middle because those folks are all still on the old platforms. Over here we have Nazis, hexbear and shitposts. And porn. It’s still early days.
Just a reminder that it isn’t a left vs right conversation. It’s working class vs ruling class.
You aren’t bitter at leftists, you’re bitter at the ideas that media companies use to keep you angry at leftists instead of oligarchs.
If you have to work, you’re working class.
If you actually do hate certain types of people, then you need to work on yourself. If you don’t believe certain people need health care, then you need to work on yourself. If you believe ultra wealthy (people making over $10mil in income annually) deserve more tax cuts, then you need to work on yourself. If you don’t believe that minimum wage should have parity with inflation, then you need to work on yourself.
Have some class solidarity.
Well said. I’m saving this.
deleted by creator
Define “conservative”
deleted by creator
Oh, and don’t forget about social safety nets that are part of the status quo but which they also don’t care about.
And social freedoms. Because fuck other’s freedoms.
Also no human or personal rights. Everyone should be a slave except for the rich. And fuck your vacations.
And not really conserving status quo either but actively trying to make it shittier.
What I’d like it to mean - the belief that government intervention often hurts the people that it’s meant to help, so should only be used in limited circumstances and be carefully designed.
It seems to mean white supremacy, misogyny, homophobia and xenophobia instead.
The idea that government intervention is bad puzzles me every time I encounter it. Government in a democracy should be “the people” and intervention could protect you in so many cases. Assuming you’re from the US, from an outside perspective your job ‘market’ is utterly fucked. Because of cuts to the welfare system (which have been marketed with somewhat racist propaganda, see welfare queens), most people are forced to take highly unregulated, low-paying jobs (yes, plural) while rich people and big companies earn more and more. The government could intervene and make it harder for companies to exploit workers the way they’re doing it right now.
Look at how it was 60 years ago. Single income, blue collar households could afford houses. Now double income academic households can’t. And all that despite the huge technological progress we made. We need so much less manual labor than in the 1960s. Everything should be easier. For everyone.
That is because denying welfare to people who need it happens to line up perfectly with the beliefs of those groups you named. Neoliberalism didn’t work out for the people, only people still voting for this shit are bigots and gullible morons.
That definition doesn’t seem to fit the verb conserve or adjective conserving. If it’s specifically about government, wouldn’t it be better to use a term for that instead of the very broad conservative? Slim Government?
In terms of economics, liberal and conservative used to mean regarding the role of government. They’ve taken the opposite meanings in American political discourse.
Even the first part of your comment is some fairy tale rich people tell you so they can make more profit.
I think they’re often wrong, but I’ve known a lot of people who aren’t rich and believe it in good faith.
Of course they believe it. Rich people get idolized like crazy and rich people are constantly saying that programs that benefit the average citizen are bad and are too expensive for the tax payers.
I understand how you feel, let me know if you find anything. I’m more left leaning myself, but I’m also not a fan of echo chambers and it gets pretty tiring and annoying seeing the same stuff over and over again. At the end of the day, I just wanna see an open, fair, and balanced discussion. The Fediverse is undeniably very left leaning currently, which is surprising to me since you’d think the anti-censorship design on paper would appeal more to people on the right who are against big tech and censorship, but I guess not? It’s interesting.
deleted by creator
I think both the left and the right are concerned with restricting rights, they just have different views of which rights it’s okay to obstruct.
Which rights to leftists want to “obstruct”?
They never come back to answer that question do they?
I personally would like to further obstruct the freedom to murder children at school.
I second that
The “rights” to deny bodily autonomy and to enact ethnical cleansing are not worth defending.
I mean honestly it’s probably near impossible to discuss conservative politics online these days without the far right loonies invading, taking over and getting the place banned lol.
Also I wonder if conservatives would be put off lemmy given the political stance of its creators - even though that shouldn’t matter being free and open and not controlled by any one person, you know how people are.
Why do you think it is, that those “far right loonies” feel welcome and comfortable in those “conservative” spaces?
I mean, while that could be correct I also consider that if far right spaces get banned regularly then those people are refugees that will invade the next closest thing?
Obviously the next closest thing to far right, is center right. Does that make the center right inherently bad? I don’t think so necessarily on principle.
I disagree with conservative views almost entirely but its not something that I believe shouldn’t have discussion spaces, unlike far right politics which can just get fucked with their disdain for basic human rights, they don’t deserve a seat at the table at all.
I suppose ultimately it’s down to moderation isn’t it. If conservatives want a seat at the table they have to keep their lunatics in check and if they don’t then yeah don’t see why I should cry over it really, and thats true of all online communities.
Center-right just fits in with everyone else. Either all those people have shut up and just blend in with liberals or they don’t really exist.
I know, so weird right
This is my issue as well. There is nothing inherently wrong with conservative politics, but most arguments I see about politics online are about highly charged topics instead of actual policy discussion. Lots of heated emotions from people whose easiest outlet is anger doesn’t make for good conversations.
It often feels like we represent media interests and are arguing on behalf of whatever source we spend the most time immersed in.
What US conservative platform bullet isn’t a grift? Is there any? It’s been nearly a decade since I came across a conservative arguing anything in good faith.
If someone is “conservative” but not a Trump loving Q nut job, I’d argue that they have about the same in common with the Biden administration than many progressives online do. There is no overlap with the majority republicans party today. The concept of discussion is not compatible.
I mean honestly it’s probably near impossible to discuss conservative politics online these days without the far right loonies invading, taking over and getting the place banned lol.
That’s true, there are a lot of far right and more extreme people in general these days, I guess people like them invading is definitely a problem, but I also feel like there’s still enough people on the right that are reasonable and not completely insane, but it is hard for sure. I’d just love to see Lemmy and the Fediverse become more balanced with a wider range of political beliefs, I think if Lemmy and the Fediverse become more widely adopted then that’ll probably solve that issue though, as it’d likely get a larger pool of people. I just don’t think echo chambers like this are good or healthy for anyone.
Also I wonder if conservatives would be put off lemmy given the political stance of its creators - even though that shouldn’t matter being free and open and not controlled by any one person, you know how people are.
That’s probably part of it for sure. But I also feel like its generally just a Fediverse thing. Like I haven’t used Mastodon a lot because I’m not a huge fan of it, but the times I have, I always felt like that was a bit more left leaning too, but I could be wrong on that since haven’t used it enough. I just get the impression that the Fediverse is generally more on the left.
Meanwhile, libertarians are staring at both the extreme left and extreme right and wondering what the fundamental difference is…
Indeed, libertarians are known to be stupid.
The Fediverse is undeniably very left leaning currently, which is surprising to me since you’d think the anti-censorship design on paper would appeal more to people on the right who are against big tech and censorship, but I guess not? It’s interesting.
What a baffling take. I’m stunned that you managed to describe the exact opposite of reality. The left are against centralisation of power, especially in corporations… It’s so absurd to suggest the left are fans of big tech. It’s even morr absurd to syggest the right are not. The right wing supports capitalism, and corporate monopoly is pretty much the goal of any capitalist business.
Also, censorship is utterly irrelevant to this discussion… apart from, i guess, social media execs having the power to silence people who hate them. Which are… most likely to be leftists…
Such a weird comment. I’m shook.
you probably have to convince more people with those views to switch away from their other social media.
i suspect moderate conservative people are maybe more likely to stay with status quo/ monolithic / non-distributed services, so there won’t be as many moving to a new looser open source thing.
like i bet linux / open source / foss users are a little bit more likely to be liberal or socialist (or DGAFs) - at least insofar as they’re choosing on principles of ownership and user rights rather than affordability - its sort of linked-in to those licenses which inherently disempower the individual creator of the IP (vs say a patent) and empower the end users and people who want to reuse the IP in a different ways. That’s basically a liberal ownership model vs a capitalist one - to grossly oversimply.
conservatives are maybe more likely to be buying proprietary services from microsoft, oracle, or amazon/google ( pay someone else to run your linux /postgres for you!), if they’re happy eating all that shit from them, reddit is probably fine.
Normal, klassical conservative or “Republican party crazy level” racism and nazism?
the former is a dead concept in the u.s., the latter has its own propaganda-spewing outlets.
Fortunately not everyone lives in the US
You know Carlos too?
Are you saying that there isn’t a single person in the USA whose beliefs align with the former definition of conservatism?
They might be, but they’re considered leftists.
The Overton window moves so fast to the right in the US that it has a visible Doppler effect.
There are a lot of them. We call them democrats/liberals now.
It depends on what you mean by conservative. If you’re going by the American definition, then good luck as all of those have been mass defederated due to them nearly always turning into far right toxic harassment zones. If you are European though and go by their definition, you’ll probably be fine. America leans very right by default. Democrats to a degree are skewed right wing at the very least economically.
This. Conservative in the US is basically extreme-right/fascism in the rest of the world. Even democrats would be considered right learning in say, Canada.
If you are the MAGA kind, you WILL need an echo chamber because nobody wants to interact with these anymore.
Not likely that there will be a conservative instance. Lemmys core principles are “left leaning” so that already lowers tolerance for the audience “the right” attracts. Every conservative instance eventually gets deleted and defederated because toxicity is baked into the idea. America’s “left” is already right wing to the rest of the modern world, so going further than that is just… not great. You can hope for the “ENLIGHTENED_CENTRISTS” to try to keep a somewhat moderated instance but I wouldn’t hold my breath.
I don’t think that lemmy’s principles are left leaning at all… Sure they’re anti-authoritarian but being anti-authoritarian doesn’t mean you’re a leftist -
George Orwell characterises this really well(mb)But George Orwell was a leftist.
Oh damn I misremembered, my bad
Somehow I got mixed up by the fact that animal farm was anti-authoritarian, not anti-left
Orwell criticized leftists as well. 1984 was a critic of Stalinism.
